1971

by David Stone

Our guests had gone home, hours ago.
Dishes done, drying on the rack,
you lounged in one of our old chairs, 
reading God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
A lamp hung a lemon umbrella above you.


Across the room, I sunk into Robert Lowell,
interrupting you all the time
to read out loud verses that stung me.
Rimsky-Korsakoff met
the rustle of summer at our window.


It was one, two, three, four a.m....
You started to say something.


If there was one thing more
in the world worth living for,
I didn’t know it.